Ok, so I built my own computer for the first time about a month ago. I was one of those lucky guys that just happened to put it all together the right way, the first time (or so I think). I booted it up, installed Windows 7, installed Diablo III, some other games, grabbed windows movie maker, couldn't get it to work, downloaded ~20 codec packages trying to get it to work, gave up got Adobe Premier, and NOW, a monthish after building it, it crashed all of a sudden.

I had just got done murdering things in Diablo III, and I logged off (D3) and closed my Pandora and Chrome and sat on my couch for a few minutes. And then the computer just shut down, and tried to restart. But it didn't start. Black screen came up and said, "Loading Operating System" like it normally does before the Windows logo comes together, and then it said, "Disk Read Error" (no number), "Press CTRL, ALT, DELETE to restart." So I did, and it skipped past that and went straight to System Restore and tried to restore the computer to a previous date. It asked me if I would like to restore to a previous date and went to go click the "lolyes" box and I come to find that my keyboard and mouse aren't recognized by my computer.

So I lean on the power button and restart again. And this time it askes me if I even want to go into recovery or just start normally, and my mouse and keyboard are working again. So I choose the recovery option, and it does the same thing. "Would you like to restore back to a previous blahblahblah" and I go to click yes, keyboard and mouse aren't working again.

So I restart again and go to start windows normally, and the screen where the Windows logo "comes together" is there, but the logo isn't coming together. Sits there for a few minutes and I just shut it down.

SOOOOOO. How can I figure out why my computer did this? And is there any general stuff I should be doing to prevent my computer from doing this kind of stuff? Like, general stuff that maybe only applies to people that build their own systems?

All windows updates have been installed, and all drivers are updated from their respective manufacturer's website.

Any help, or general guidance will solving this issue (if it's even an issue anymore) or preventing issues would be greatly appreciated.

The only thing I have planned to do about this thus far (seeing as the computer seems to be working fine now), is make this post, and open my computer up and make sure everything is actually snuggly fit and secure where it's supposed to be.

Thats an odd one, i think your keyboard and mouse are probably failing because they are in USB 3.0 sockets and not USB 2.0 i have the same problem if use USB 3.0.

The disk read error is a bit concerning, if it's a new hard drive it might be worth getting it replaced if it fails again also could be a virus from something you downloaded screwing with your machine.

The computer started acting sluggish after this post. Everything stopped working. I could click on things, the start menu, but couldn't open anything from it, or anything else. Nothing would load from the desktop or from already open programs. Took several minutes for the task manager to open up. So I shut it down. When it came back up, it asked me to restart the computer, as if it had just finished updates. But there was no notification that it had done any updates, it just said restart now or later as soon as I booted it up. Now it's working fine.

The computer started acting sluggish after this post. Everything stopped working. I could click on things, the start menu, but couldn't open anything from it, or anything else. Nothing would load from the desktop or from already open programs. Took several minutes for the task manager to open up. So I shut it down. When it came back up, it asked me to restart the computer, as if it had just finished updates. But there was no notification that it had done any updates, it just said restart now or later as soon as I booted it up. Now it's working fine.

Are you using a single HDD because this sounds like an issue I had. Downloading at a reasonable speed used to cripple my PC. During windows updates it was even worse despite the download speed usually being quite low. I think my HDD was/is on its way out maybe you have the same issue. I solved it by getting an SSD and using that as my C drive.

This is easy to test though, just max out your download speed and see if you have a big performance decrease.

Originally Posted by Dj

your a Gnome, how the heck does it feel to suck that badly?

Originally Posted by Xtacle

Gnomes are awesome, and piss people off, how does it feel to die to a tiny pink puffball?

Is the firmware on your motherboard up to date? I know a friend of mine who's quirky problems were solved when he got the latest firmware

How would I go about checking this? Would information be in the mobo's owner's manual?

Originally Posted by russ555

Are you using a single HDD because this sounds like an issue I had. Downloading at a reasonable speed used to cripple my PC. During windows updates it was even worse despite the download speed usually being quite low. I think my HDD was/is on its way out maybe you have the same issue. I solved it by getting an SSD and using that as my C drive.

This is easy to test though, just max out your download speed and see if you have a big performance decrease.

I'm using a 128gb Kingston SSD and a 1TB WD Caviar Black HDD. The SSD is obviously my C drive.

Ever since opening up the case and disconnecting and reconnecting everything, it's been running fine. Perhaps one of the SATA ports was not properly seated. The one that my SSD is using does not have one of the "locking" mechanisms, so it can just be pulled out without pressing anything.

To check the Bios version click on the start button, type msinfo32 into the search bar, run it and on the right hand side of the window that pops up will be a system summary and in that list it will show what version you are running. You can then check the Gigabyte website bios page and see if your version is up to date.